


i won't bend or break

by gravitropism



Series: Grad Students!AU [9]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Attempt at Humor, Fluff, Grad Students!AU, M/M, it's just for the story, okay but this has no plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 04:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10959381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravitropism/pseuds/gravitropism
Summary: Life is tough when you're a grad student.





	i won't bend or break

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series, I promise I'm not an awful writer so pls go read the rest before this. Basically a collection of drabbles about Exo's hard lives as grad students.
> 
> s o r r y f o r t h e w a i t title from Puppet's To Be Alive

Baekhyun is on the phone with someone’s mom. He’s not actually sure who the “someone” is, but their mom is pretty pissed.

“No, ma’am, I can’t tell you that, there is a law against me giving out that kind of information--”

“I’m the one paying tuition, I think you can give me my son’s grades!”

Baekhyun sighs. This isn’t the first phone call he’s gotten like this. It doesn’t help that Kyungsoo is sitting across the table from him, laughing his ass off.

“Fuck off,” he mouths, glaring at him. This totally isn’t fair, they both teach for this class, why does he have to be the one to take the phone call?

Kyungsoo just shrugs. “Sorry, what did you say?” he asks, shoulders still shaking with laughter.

Baekhyun flips him off. “It’s against the law to tell you your son’s grade in this class,” he repeats, drumming on the table in frustration. “FERPA, Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. Your son is over eighteen, so I’m legally unable to tell you.”

“Well, he won’t give me access, and I need to see!”

He has half the mind to hunt this woman down and strangle her. “I think you need to take this issue up with your son, then, instead of me or my supervisor, who also cannot provide you with that information.”

“Oh, I’ll be taking this up with your supervisor, don’t you doubt that!”

Baekhyun resists the urge to slam his head into the table repeatedly. “I’m warning you now, you’re just going to get the same answer.” He hears a click, and then the phone goes to dial tone.

Pulling the phone away from his ear, he looks at the screen in slight disbelief. “It’s been years, how do they not understand that I literally cannot give them their child’s grades unless the kid authorizes it?”

Kyungsoo leans back in his chair. “I have no idea. It is ridiculous, though,” he says, dabbing the tears of mirth out of his eyes. “Pity you have to be professional. I’d love to swear at every mother who thinks they’re above the law.”

Baekhyun tucks his phone into his pocket. “Honestly, I was about two minutes away from it.”

\--

“No, I can’t give you half a point back. Your setup isn’t right,” Jongdae says, trying his best to be firm.

“But I got the right answer!” the kid whines. Jongdae doesn’t actually know his name. He only knows the kid as “that one,” the one with the elitist attitude who thinks he’s hot shit. No way in hell is Jongdae giving this little dick a single point back.

“You got the right answer, but it was a coincidence that you did,” Jongdae points out. He indicates the second half of the problem. “None of this work makes sense. In fact, if you hadn’t messed up the arithmetic in this part here,” he says, pointing to another spot, “you would have gotten a totally different answer.”

“It doesn’t matter if the setup is wrong if the answer is right,” the kid says, like Jongdae gives a shit what he thinks.

Jongdae wants to pull his hair out. “Number one, it says on the rubric that the work is part of the points for this problem. It’s been this way this entire class, why should it change now? And second, none of this work demonstrates that you know how to do this kind of problem. I see no reason why I should give you any points back.”

The kid looks taken aback. “They would have given me points back in my math class last semester.”

“Yes, well, this class is different. I’m not going to repeat myself. Now, do you have any other questions, or are we finished here?” Jongdae is so done.

“That’s all I had,” the kid grumbles, snatching back his exam. He stuffs it into his backpack, and gets up, stomping out. No doubt he’ll go to the professor and ask for the same half point back. Jongdae makes a mental note to warn the man before the kid goes to his office hours. Nobody should have to waste their time like that.

He leans back in his chair and checks his phone. He has another forty-five minutes of office hours to go. Great.

\--

Minseok is bored. And not just bored, also irritated. There’s an exam coming up, and Lee told both him and Chanyeol that they need to hold extra office hours sometime during the days leading to it. So here he sits, bored and waiting for someone to show up.

It wouldn’t be that much of an issue, but he’s missing lunch with Kyungsoo and the rest of their group for this. Normally he would be content to sit and get some of his non-lab work done, but he really wishes he could eat with Kyungsoo. They’ve both been busy lately, so it’s been hard to spend time together.

He glances at the clock. He can hear it ticking. It’s only 12:20, and he is supposed to be here until 2, which is when the discussion section he teaches starts. Okay, so an hour and forty minutes to kill.

As soon as it becomes apparent that nobody is coming until at least 1, Minseok pulls out his laptop and starts reading over some paper that Lee suggested they read. It’s long and full of technical language, which isn’t really a problem, but it’s making his eyes droop. He really shouldn’t have stayed up late last night talking to Kyungsoo on the phone as he worked.

He really regrets not getting coffee this morning.

\--

Sehun strides confidently into lab. It’s 8:30, he’s had plenty of sleep, and his plates should be finished growing by today. Jongin trails in somewhat less enthusiastically behind him, sipping coffee and grimacing.

“I don’t get why you’re so chipper,” he says to Sehun, slumping down beside his bench.

Sehun grins. “Can’t I just have a good day every once in a while?” he asks, and puts his bag and jacket down.

“I guess, but stay away from me. You’re too cheerful for this early in the morning,” Jongin grouses, and boots up his workstation PC.

Sehun just shrugs, and hits the power button on his own computer. While he waits for it to boot, he could go and pick up his plates. What an efficient use of time.

The incubators are outside in the hallway, so he leaves the lab, walking over to the large hulking grey incubator.

Sehun whips out his keys, and reaches for the handle... wait a second. The door to the incubator is slightly ajar. Oh, fuck.

Swinging the door open, Sehun stares in horror at the plates waiting for him. Every single one, and Sehun means it when he says every single one, is covered in white fuzzy mold.

“No!” he cries dropping to his knees. He’s still kneeling there when Jongin sprints out of the lab twenty seconds later.

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Jongin asks, frantic. Sehun just shakes his head and points to the cabinet. He can feel the tears beginning to form in his eyes.

“Oh my god,” Jongin whispers. “What happened? It’s a massacre in there.”

“The door was open a little when I got here,” Sehun says mournfully, a tear rolling down his cheek. He finds his plates among the many in the incubator, and strokes their plastic tops. “My poor babies,” he sniffles.

“Oh man, this is bad,” Jongin says from behind him. “We need to tell someone about this. That door shouldn’t have been left open.”

Sehun looks over his shoulder at Jongin. “Did you lose anyone?”

Jongin shakes his head, and reaches down to pat Sehun’s shoulder. “No, but I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Me too,” Sehun says, and he can feel the sobs starting to come.

\--

Junmyeon is busy. He’s always busy, really, so saying that doesn’t really make much of a difference. He’s really busy this time, though. Papers to grade, frantic students to tutor... yep, very busy.

He takes a sip from his coffee mug, and looks back to the article he’s been reading. It truly is very good; however he fails to see how it is relevant to his work. But whatever his professor says to read, he reads.

Speaking of his professor. Junmyeon tucks the article under his arm to open the door to his office. He has some papers to pick up from the old man that need to be graded (which, of course, is his job and his job only, even though the man only teaches two small classes).

“Ah, Junmyeon!” (Junmyeon winces as he remembers the entire year he spent just trying to get the man to pronounce his name right.)

“Hi, Professor Flynn, how are you this morning?” Junmyeon asks, smile automatically plastered on his face. It’s not that he doesn’t like his professor, because his work is truly amazing, but he can grate on Junmyeon’s nerves sometimes. Especially when he’s stressed. Which is almost always.

“Fine, well, good,” Flynn says, beaming. “What brings you here?”

Is he serious? “You sent me an email? There are papers that need grading, correct?” Junmyeon asks, trying to keep his tone as polite as possible.

“Oh, yes, those,” the professor says grandly. “Where did I put those things, yes...” he mutters to himself cheerily, shuffling around his desk. “While I look, how are you?”

“I’m doing well, thank you,” Junmyeon says cautiously. He’s stalling. That’s never a good sign.

“I’m glad. Anything fun planned for the weekend?” Flynn asks, pausing in his shuffling to smile magnanimously.

“Um. I think I’m going out with some friends?”

The professor nods sagely. “Always a good time. What are you doing with them?”

“There’s a performance we wanted to see, a local band is playing at a bar.”

“Ah, I miss the days where I could go out late at night! Never grow older, Junmyeon, it sucks the fun out of life!”

“Yes, well,” Junmyeon coughs. “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes, could I maybe get those papers?” He doesn’t actually have a meeting. He hopes Flynn won’t ask him about it, and force him to lie even more.

The professor’s eyes widen. “Oh, yes. Well. Let me see, I think I put them...” He reaches for a stack of papers slotted into his bookshelf. The bastard, he definitely knew they were there all along. “Here we are,” he says, beaming.

The papers are delivered into Junmyeon’s waiting hands. And there it is, the familiar brown coffee stain coating the paper. Most of the words on the pages are blurry, and Junmyeon now knows why Flynn was so hesitant to hand them over.

“I spilled a little bit of coffee on them, I hope you don’t mind,” he harrumphs. “They should still be readable.”

Junmyeon resists the urge to sigh. “No, this will be fine. I’ll see you on Monday,” he says, and heads out, closing the door behind him.

He looks down at the sheaf of paper in his hands. The last thing he needed this weekend was another coffee spill.

\--

Chanyeol loves what he does, really. Lasers are very interesting, and very fun to work with. Except when he burns himself.

He looks down at the blister forming on his hand. The equipment they use has a tendency to get very hot, and technically Chanyeol could wear gloves, but he often needs to adjust small pieces, so he leaves them off and tries to be as careful as possible. This choice, however, does not always work in his favor.

“Shit,” he mutters.

“What’s wrong?” Minseok asks, looking over from his place further on down their bench.

“Oh, nothing. Burnt myself again,” Chanyeol says, trying to keep his tone casual. It hurts, though.

“Again?” Minseok snickers. “Stay there, I’ll go get the first aid kit.”

“You don’t need to--” Chanyeol starts, but Minseok is already gone. He resigns himself to yet another round of mothering from the older student.

Minseok returns, white plastic box in his hands. “I think we still have some aloe left. I’ll add it to the list of things to buy, Lee can’t complain about having to buy that,” he says, setting the box down. He opens it and rummages through, pulling out the almost-empty bottle of green goo. “Is it blistering? Go run it under some water.”

They’re not in a chemistry lab, but they luckily still have a sink, so Chanyeol goes over and turns the water to cold. The water feels great on the sharp, throbbing pain of the burn.

“I need to stop being so clumsy,” Chanyeol mutters. His hand is going slightly numb from the cold, so he takes it out and flexes it before shoving it back under the sink. “The burn isn’t too bad, though, it shouldn’t blister too badly.”

“That’s good. Don’t blame yourself for being clumsy, just be more careful next time? Maybe it’s time to start wearing those gloves a little more often,” Minseok suggests, slipping the gloves on himself and completing the setup for Chanyeol’s experiment. “Should I click start, or do you still have to do something else?”

“Nope, that’s it. I was just adjusting the angle,” Chanyeol explains, and removes his hand. He can’t feel anything but cold, so that should be sufficient for now. Minseok takes his hand and inspects the small blister forming.

“Yeah, this isn’t too bad,” he mutters. “We’ll just slap some aloe on under a bandage and you should be fine.” Minseok squirts some out of the bottle and spreads it around with a cotton swab, then carefully places the bandage on top. “Be careful, okay?”

“Okay, mom,” Chanyeol laughs. Minseok grins at him.

“If I’m your mom, what does that make Kyungsoo?”

“Definitely also my mom.”

\--

Kyungsoo is sitting alone in the graduate History lounge. Baekhyun is having a meeting with their professor about his research, and therefore Kyungsoo has nobody to talk to. So he’s bored.

The windows are open, and he has the door propped open for a nice cross-breeze. That’s the nice thing about September: the air is cool enough that it makes opening the windows worth it, but warm enough that he’s not shivering.

Fuck office hours, honestly, Kyungsoo thinks. He wishes his professor could just have his students email him and Baekhyun when they need help with something, and not have them sit here like this, bored as hell.

There’s a knock at the doorframe, and Kyungsoo turns his head. It’s a student he vaguely recognizes, but definitely doesn’t see on a regular basis in class.

“Hi, Kyungsoo, right?” The girl says, and Kyungsoo nods.

“Yeah, are you here for HIST-A245?” he asks, and motions for her to come sit down.

“I am, actually,” the girl says, and removes her backpack, taking a seat. “I wanted to talk to you about my grade on the last paper.” Oh boy.

Kyungsoo sighs quietly. “Do you have the paper with you?” he asks, and grabs his laptop so he can check her grade. He quickly logs onto the school’s portal website, and pulls up the page that lists grades. “What’s your name, again?”

“Molly Barker?” the girl says, shuffling some papers around in her backpack. Kyungsoo scrolls down the list, looking for her name. He clicks, and checks her grades: wow, not good. Did she even turn the papers in? No, he vaguely remembers reading some papers and laughing at them with Baekhyun. She must have been one of those. Why is she even in this class?

Molly pulls out her papers, finally, and points to one of the comments he definitely remembers making. “I don’t think you should have counted off for this,” she says, tapping the paper.

Kyungsoo shakes his head. “You phrased it in a way that was dismissive of native cultures. I expect, at the least, a neutral tone. That was unacceptable, and Professor Swanson agreed with me.”

She leans forward. “There has to be a way for me to get points back. I’m failing this class, and we’re not even a month in!”

“There are more assignments on the way,” Kyungsoo explains, sitting back. “If you complete those on time, unlike this one, you’ll get more points. Additionally, if you come to my office hours, or Baekhyun’s office hours, before the paper is due, we can help you correct your mistakes.”

“Isn’t there an easier way?” Molly says, leaning forward even more. Kyungsoo isn’t really sure what she’s talking about.

“The professor doesn’t give extra credit, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Kyungsoo says slowly. “I suppose you could try rewriting these papers, and he might agree to give you a few extra points back.”

“Can’t I just... do something?” The girl has her eyelids lowered. Hang on a second—

“Sorry, what?”

“If I have sex with you, will you give me an A in this class?”

Kyungsoo splutters. “What? No!”

Her foot touches his underneath the table, and Kyungsoo immediately scoots back. “No way.”

“Please?”

Kyungsoo shakes his head. “You realize I’m going to have to report this to the professor, correct?”

At this, Molly’s eyes widen. “What?”

“I’m going to have to report this. Academic dishonesty in any form can get me in trouble, and I’d rather not face any consequences.” Kyungsoo really wants to pull his hair out and swear at her, but he has to maintain a polite facade in front of students, no matter how stupid they are.

“What if we have sex, and then you just happen to grade my papers less harshly?”

Kyungsoo resists the urge to flip the table. “That’s literally the same thing. Not only will it mess my career up, but I wouldn’t want to have sex with you even if we didn’t have a purely teacher-student relationship.”

Now, she looks insulted. “Why not?”

“I have a significant other. No, thank you.”

“But I need to pass this class,” she says, beginning to look pissed. Kyungsoo is over his initial surprise, and he’s starting to become angry as well.

“Are you going to sit here and waste my time, or are you going to ask an actual question about your paper?” Kyungsoo asks, barely keeping annoyance out of his tone.

Molly glares at him, and stands, pushing her chair in with a huff. She seems like she wants to say something, but evidently can’t think of anything clever to say, so she grabs her backpack, snatches her papers off the table, and storms out without another word.

Kyungsoo drops his head into his hands. Is this real life?

\--

Yixing settles down with a cup of tea, content to spend the rest of his night catching up on readings and relaxing. It’s Monday night, and the class he helps out with has an exam tomorrow. He’s not looking forward to proctoring, because it’s deathly boring at best, but at least he’ll have Sehun and Jongin with him.

He takes a sip of his tea. It’s some blend of herbs his professor gave him (they’re fast friends; Yixing likes to give her obscure wine on holidays), and it has quite the relaxing effect.

Queueing up the articles he has to read, Yixing goes for a quick little check of his email before he begins. Although the students who normally have the most issues already came to his office hours earlier in the day, some people will probably end up emailing him questions.

His inbox has 52 new emails.

What.

Yixing checked just an hour ago, and there were only a few unread then, why are there so many now? He scrolls to the bottom of the list, the earliest one sent, and clicks on it. It’s an email from a student, asking a clarifying question. He sets his tea down, and types out a quick reply before moving onto the next one. The question is similar, and he tweaks his reply a bit.

Half an hour passes, and Yixing realizes that he’s only halfway through his inbox.

He sighs, and slowly shuts his laptop, lifting his now cold tea to his lips. Should he bother replying to all of them? Probably not. Would it be a waste of his time? Yes. Maybe he can just pretend he was busy. He “went to bed early.” The emails can be answered tomorrow morning.

Yixing gets up, draining his cup. He refills it with hot water, and waits patiently for his tea to steep. He walks back to his laptop, sits down, and closes out of his email.

The undergrads waited this long to learn the material, they can wait a little longer.

\--

Jongin reaches a hand up and tugs on his hair. This is frustrating.

“Sehun!” he calls out. “Help me.”

Sehun ambles over, taking his merry sweet time, as per usual. “What?”

Jongin points to the results of his latest experiments on his computer screen. “Why did I get that?”

Sehun laughs. “I have no idea; why the hell are you asking me?”

Jongin groans. Of course Sehun would reply like that. But Jongin has been working on this issue for the past two weeks. He can’t seem to figure out why his bacteria are refusing to accept the gene he’s trying to insert. Is it the bacteria? Is it the gene? Is he bad at science? Jongin really isn’t sure, and at this rate, he’s going to end up stuck in a lab for forever. “Can you at least try and help me?”

Sehun shrugs. “Well, I could try, but I honestly have no idea what’s happening. You explained the problem, and I checked everything over. I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”

Jongin sighs. “I asked Yixing, and he said the same thing. Professor Reisenfeld gave me a vague ‘I’ll take a look’ about a week ago, and I haven’t heard anything from her since.”

“Typical,” Sehun sighs, and pats Jongin on the back. “Get Yixing to ask her for you, she really likes him.”

“Why is he the favorite?” Jongin complains. “I still need to get things done.”

Sehun shrugs. “Might have something to do with the wine he buys her on holidays. If I were you, and judging by the intricacy of your problem, I’d go with vodka.”

Jongin pushes a laughing Sehun out of his field of vision. He’s really not helping.

Hours later, Jongin no closer to solving his problem, but he’s technically done for the day, so he shoves his papers into his bag, and grabs his jacket on his way out. He’s supposed to go to Baekhyun’s today, but he’s really not up for anything super high energy.

The bus trip is short, but the back of Jongin’s neck hurts. By the time he knocks on Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s apartment door, he just wants to go to bed.

“Jongin!” Baekhyun crows, opening the door and tugging Jongin inside. “How are you?”

“Not good,” Jongin says, toeing off his shoes. He drops his bag and his jacket, and lifts his arms over his head in a stretch. His neck pops, and he winces.

Baekhyun reaches up to ruffle his hair. “Well that’s not good. How about I feed you, and then maybe a massage to make your back feel better?”

Jongin beams at him. That sounds absolutely perfect. “Yes, please,” he says, and Baekhyun entangles their fingers, and drags him off to the kitchen.

They end up on Baekhyun’s bed, Baekhyun straddling Jongin’s lower back. “Thanks,” Jongin mutters, a lot happier and a lot less hungry.

“I got your back, you know?” Baekhyun says, talking quietly for once. “You can rely on me, and the rest of us, too. Just remember, when you’re having a bad day, you’ve got a clingy boyfriend who happens to be friends with a good cook.”

Jongin giggles. “Thanks, again. You’re the best, really.”

He can feel Baekhyun’s laugh. “I know I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> t h a n k s f o r r e a d i n g f r i e n d next part will be out in less than a month hopefully sooner rather than later lmao.


End file.
